A party can win power with populist demagogy but to govern more serious thought is needed, says DENIS MACSHANE. A Corbyn-led Labour government would come up against the sort of obstacles that crushed the Syriza-inspired opposition to EU austerity, says RUSSELL CAPLAN. Any left advance needs to mobilise people power in workplaces and communities, says KEITH FLETT Gary Younge might have examined Portugal alongside Greece in his persuasive argument on what a left party elected to power can do (Syriza’s defeat shows the left needs a plan to sustain power, 12 July). Syriza’s left populism in opposition raised hopes that all Syriza had to do was shout loud enough and the rest of Europe, also constrained by domestic political pressures, would roll over and do what the professors and columnists turned into Syriza ministers insisted should happen. It is the Boris Johnson approach to Europe – if you shout loud enough the rest of the EU must bow to Brussels-bashing populist ideology. Syriza held a referendum in 2015 which was pure cake and eat it. The campaign slogan on posters and sprayed on every wall in Greece was “No to austerity, Yes to Europe”. Who could not vote for that – rather as if the UK’s 2016 Brexit campaign was based on saying no to the Brussels but yes to staying in the single market? Continue reading...
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